Is football bad for your health?

A new study seems to confirm the fears that top footballers are risking their health and too little is being done about it

The fortunes that professional football players command today make little sense if they damage their health and possibly shorten their lives in pursuit of them. Slowly and reluctantly, sporting authorities around the world are beginning to digest reports published in medical and scientific journals concerning an Italian study which suggests that footballers are six times more likely to develop motor neurone disease (MND) than the general population.

The illness is incurable. The motor neurones — cells that carry the brain’s messages to the body — degenerate. The central nervous system malfunctions, balance and movement are impaired, and death is inevitable.

This is not an alarmist portrayal of a disease suffered by 5,000 people in the UK at any one time. Nor is it scare-mongering by newspapers making the connection between sport and the incurable illness.

Dr Adriano Chio, who led the University of Turin research team that analysed medical records of 7,000